I have spaghetti type worms growing on the rock I have in the tank now. Not sure if they are the boring type. I think if they can get through limestone they can probably get into this. There is also a buch of critters that live on the rocks. They seem to be living between the coralline layers.
My opinion is this stuff will be great in helping with filtration....to a point. The thickest rock I make is no more than 1.5". It is porous. Probably more so or equal to some of the liverock or base rocks we use in our tanks. I do not think it will aid in reducing nitrates. But that to me isn't the end of the world. I am planning an 40 gallon water changes every two weeks which would probably end up being about 15% every month. I also have a huge skimmer and lots and lots of flow. The tank will be bare bottom and I plan on using a floss type material to catch detritus before it gets into the sump. This sounds like a lot of work but it is all pretty much automated.
Where I think it will benefit filtration is in the massive amount of surface area the bacteria will have to colonize. I can pretty much double the surface area of liverock due to the fact the rock is hollow. Basically it will work like the ceramic that goes into a canister filter with the difference being there should be no sediment or detritus buildup in the tank like what occurs in a canister. Not to mention it does absorbe water like liverock so at what rate the water passes through it I don't know. But does anyone know how fast or how effectively it passes through a six inch piece of liverock? I don't. I also would bet 80-90% of the filtration done by liverock is from the bacteria living on or near the surface. If anyone has better numbers please share as I am guessing on this.
This is what I think will happen.....not what I know will happen.
What I do know is I have two 40 breeders set up sharing a 75 gallon sump. There is about 30 pounds of rock in the sump and two ceramic stream rocks. In one 40 breeder is about 25 pounds of rubble rock and no sand. In the other is about 35 pounds of ceramic and a shallow sand bed. It took about three months to get 100% coralline coverage on the artificial(ceramic) rock. The rubble also had good coralline growth. Now for close to a year I rarely dosed or cleaned the skimmer. And I did no water changes. At one point the skimmer actually wasn't on for about two months. I wanted to see if I could crash the system. I did not lose a single fish and the only corals I lost were a couple of stonie frags. I think those died from neglect more than anything. Lets just say the tanks look like hell right now. But both look bad. I have started doing water changes and the improvements are very noticable. I sucked out all kinds of sediment and the algae that was out of control in both tanks is going away. Coralline is growing at a rapid pace again. What's my point?.... I dont really have one. But I feel pretty safe in using this stuff after all I put it through.
I will be bringing a few pieces to the WRS meeting this month. I also brought it to the FVRC meeting a few months ago for others to check out.
Sorry for the book and hijacking your thread Bryan.....I am a bad man.
Gooch
My opinion is this stuff will be great in helping with filtration....to a point. The thickest rock I make is no more than 1.5". It is porous. Probably more so or equal to some of the liverock or base rocks we use in our tanks. I do not think it will aid in reducing nitrates. But that to me isn't the end of the world. I am planning an 40 gallon water changes every two weeks which would probably end up being about 15% every month. I also have a huge skimmer and lots and lots of flow. The tank will be bare bottom and I plan on using a floss type material to catch detritus before it gets into the sump. This sounds like a lot of work but it is all pretty much automated.
Where I think it will benefit filtration is in the massive amount of surface area the bacteria will have to colonize. I can pretty much double the surface area of liverock due to the fact the rock is hollow. Basically it will work like the ceramic that goes into a canister filter with the difference being there should be no sediment or detritus buildup in the tank like what occurs in a canister. Not to mention it does absorbe water like liverock so at what rate the water passes through it I don't know. But does anyone know how fast or how effectively it passes through a six inch piece of liverock? I don't. I also would bet 80-90% of the filtration done by liverock is from the bacteria living on or near the surface. If anyone has better numbers please share as I am guessing on this.
This is what I think will happen.....not what I know will happen.
What I do know is I have two 40 breeders set up sharing a 75 gallon sump. There is about 30 pounds of rock in the sump and two ceramic stream rocks. In one 40 breeder is about 25 pounds of rubble rock and no sand. In the other is about 35 pounds of ceramic and a shallow sand bed. It took about three months to get 100% coralline coverage on the artificial(ceramic) rock. The rubble also had good coralline growth. Now for close to a year I rarely dosed or cleaned the skimmer. And I did no water changes. At one point the skimmer actually wasn't on for about two months. I wanted to see if I could crash the system. I did not lose a single fish and the only corals I lost were a couple of stonie frags. I think those died from neglect more than anything. Lets just say the tanks look like hell right now. But both look bad. I have started doing water changes and the improvements are very noticable. I sucked out all kinds of sediment and the algae that was out of control in both tanks is going away. Coralline is growing at a rapid pace again. What's my point?.... I dont really have one. But I feel pretty safe in using this stuff after all I put it through.
I will be bringing a few pieces to the WRS meeting this month. I also brought it to the FVRC meeting a few months ago for others to check out.
Sorry for the book and hijacking your thread Bryan.....I am a bad man.
Gooch
